Freedom
My third week of YWAM entailed many great revelations, realizations, and moments of my humility being stretched. The topic of class for this week was freedom. The partially painful but incredibly healing pure heart week which took place hitherto led perfectly into this weeks pursuit of freedom. Pursuit, meaning striving toward, I say that because since we are flesh we never truly have freedom. Yes, once we have the Holy Spirit residing in us we can live in righteous freedom but to think we are fully free may be the greatest stronghold one could have. To live in complacency and lukewarmness. We should always be interceding and asking God to reveal the places in which we are weak. "Freedom is discovering your identity and purpose in Jesus and tearing down every stronghold that opposes your ability to walk in the fullness of that identity and purpose" (27, Salvation Encounter). I want to be continuously pursuing freedom throughout my whole life and especially now. I want to be the most spiritually and mentally prepared I can be for what God has planned during outreach. I will inform you on where I am going and what I will be doing for my outreach in December in this journal. I pray that everyday I can step into the fullness that God has for me so that everyday of outreach can be lived to my fullest.
View from my friend's doorless Jeep Comanchee
Strongholds
Strongholds were something we talked about this week relating to freedom. Stronghold means a place in which the devil has a strong hold in an aspect of your life. This is similar to the childhood wounds I wrote about in my previous entry. Entry 10: Pure Heart - 10/17/22 Unlike a mother or father wound, or traumatic experience, the foundation of a stronghold usually starts with our thoughts. Then those thoughts turn into decisions which then materialize into our actions. After we act out of these negative thoughts that we have accepted, they become what we value, which becomes a lifestyle, ultimately ending with us in bondage controlled by this Strong-Hold in a certain part of our life. Strongholds find other strongholds. This can cause the devils grasp upon our lives to go unseen but create more and more pain and problems. The best way to desecrate these strongholds is to identify them then allow God to initiate Freedom in those areas. Replace the bad with good. We must not strive for freedom on our own but instead work from the Love that God gives us. We can work from his love, we do not need to work for it.
Entitlement
Another facet of pursuing freedom is the process of removing prior beliefs of entitlement. On Tuesday in class we dove into the possible beliefs of entitlement that we have created in our lives. The teacher went over many different scenarios and examples of how us students may be living with a mind full of entitlement. This is the day I felt sweet conviction and got humbled. I can confidently say that I enjoy being convicted and humbled. Because it is through this process that I learn more about myself and grow deeper in my relationship with Christ. One of the first areas of entitlement I was living in was thinking I am entitled to all the food I need here. This was funny because I had just wrote a journal the day prior about the lack of food at YWAM. The teacher reminded us that we are not entitled to perfect meals that we want and that complaining actually enlists disbelief; whereas, gratitude strengthens faith. There was a a couple of other areas that I felt convicted in. I can truly say that after realizing these places in which I thought I was entitled and bringing them to the light I felt a stronger sense of freedom. The thing about freedom is you can be living in it like I was, but still have places in which you are being held back. Like I stated above this is why we should always be praying that God exposes these areas in our life. An important thing to keep in mind when these strongholds and entitled beliefs are brought to the surface is to not feel shame or guilt. Both shame and guilt are lies from the enemy, they are not from God. Because God is a merciful and loving God we can repent and turn in the opposite direction than before. By beating ourselves up and allowing guilt and shame into our minds we are truly placing another stronghold in our souls.
Prophetic Prayers
For those of you who do not know what prophetic prayer is, it is when someone prays over you and listens to what the Holy Spirit is conveying to them about you. To some this may sound far out there or not real. I encourage you to not put God in a box. The same God that raised Jesus from the dead and healed my roommate of cancer on the spot is living in us and all heavenly authority abides in us. Prophetic prayer is usually to encourage the receiver of the gifts and plan God has for them and by hearing it from another person the receiver can strengthen their faith as well as receive confirmation. Our teachers for the week, Lindy and Chase Cofer have great faith and believe in prophetic prayer. It is through faith and belief that one can receive the heavenly gifts that God has predestined within each and every single one of us. They prophetically prayed over our entire class of FIRE and FRAGRANCE to hear God's "original design". Original design is what I was talking about above. God has placed gifts upon us while we were in our mothers wombs that when we live for him can be used to glorify him and reach others. "For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139:13-16. The six prophetic words they received for our class was Fearlessness, Worship, Leaders, Radically Holy, Leaders in Worship, and Harvesters. I am not going to break down each one, but I especially liked to hear worship and harvesters. Worship is much more than singing. Worship is an expression of our creativeness towards the creator so that we can give him praise and glory.
My preferred forms of worship are exercise, writing journals and poetry, and sometimes singing. Our entire life should be a form of worship. Lindy Coffer is the one that received the word worship and she said she can feel many great worshippers within our class that are the tipping point in our generation. This was extremely encouraging to hear from her because she is an amazing singer and worship leader. When they said our class was filled with laborers/harvesters this made me excited because I had just previously wrote about my revelation in my pure heart entry that God called me to be farmer of men. Click to read more in depth Entry 10: Pure Heart - 10/17/22. Both Lindy and Chase said that our class has something extremely special and have an annointing from the Lord. They said when they entered the tent for class they could feel the overflowing faith in each one of us and that we are not here just for a "gap year" or to experience Hawaii. In YWAM Kona it is a common theme for class's to be filled with lukewarm students. Because of the location, many students come to Kona just to have a fun 3 months in Hawaii than go to a cool country for the next 3 months. Our class is different we have already heard many times from different leaders and staff that it is obvious each one of us has a burning fire to reach every tribe, tongue, and nation and I feel it too. Everyone here is so likeminded and pursing something so much deeper then an experience in Hawaii. We have great leaders, pastors, musicians, and long term missionaries in this class and I cannot wait to see how God uses each one of us.
Outreach
When I signed up for YWAM Kona I thought I was automatically going to trek through the Himalayan Mountains to unreached villages carrying 30-50 lbs of Bibles in a backpack. This is what I prepared for and thought I signed up for. When I got here I learned that may not be the case. On the second day of class we were shown a video of every location that the 300 students would be split up and sent to. We were told to write down our top three locations that we felt God put on our hearts. We had one day to make the 3 location list, then the staff would pray about it and choose our locations. I submitted my locations, and I actually ended up putting a location as my #1 that did not involve trekking. It also was somewhere I had never even heard of and did not want to go. I stepped out in faith and wanted to show God that I do not care about a certain assignment like trekking or particular location. I will go wherever he sends me, I came to YWAM to share the gospel. Everywhere on earth has a need for Christ, so it does not matter where I am called to go. I laid my life before Christ and made it known that it is not mine. I submitted to his will for me and no matter what it may be, let my soul say it is well. I also knew if it was God's will for me to go to the Himalayas to trek then it did not matter what location I put down. After I surrendered to the thought of going anywhere and doing anything for God is when I had my most vivid and surrendered encounter with him. this is what I wrote about in Entry 8. Entry 8: Chills in the Heat of Hawaii - 10/5/22.
My second location was Himalayan Trekking and my third was India trekking. I also learned at RTC (RTC is the fitness group apart of YWAM that prepares those who want to trek) that just because you want to trek does not mean you are for sure going to. They stressed how it is the hardest mental and physical endeavor they have ever done. The coaches of RTC often talk about how we can train as much as possible and do our best to be prepared but there is no possible way to be physically or mentally prepared for what trekking entails. Between the altitude, cold weather, heavy backpacks, treacherous terrain, and uncertainties like sickness or diarrhea, trekking is no easy feat. After enough workouts and seeing each student who is in RTC display their character, it is then that the coaches decide who is fit for the journey. 90% is based off the student's heart posture and ability to mentally push through is what the coaches said. Being physically strong is definitely important but they said that the one who always does the best on treks is not the strongest physically but instead the one with a burning desire to share Gods love with others and who has unwavering tenacity. After three weeks of waiting and not knowing when we would receive our locations, we found out. On Friday we were all called to meet in the Ohana court and were told our Outreach locations.
I was so happy when I saw my name then the location of Himalayan trekking. I felt an overwhelming peace and excitement because this was the original reason I was wanted to come to YWAM Kona and is what I felt called to do. I felt honored to be given the responsibility alongside my 9 other team members to reach the unreached in the hardest and darkest of locations. It will be no easy task and I will do my best to be prepared spiritually, mentally, and physically. I will be pushed beyond anything I thought I was capable of. My team and I will grow insanely close through trials and hard times. I look forward to the lifelong friendships that could possibly be formed in these next 5 months. I will train with them and prepare in Hawaii for the next 1 1/2 months, then sometime in mid December fly to the mountains and we will start our treks. if you would like to support me, you can pray that my team and I can grow together and be united. You can pray that we all stay safe and healthy before and during outreach. Thank you all for the continuous support and Love. May you be enlightened and inspired by this assortment of my previous feelings and experiences conveyed through the expression of the English language presented through a journal entry.
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